Young seal or dolphin, in his deadly clutch,
He fed his eagles in the noonday sun;
Nor less at midnight ranged the deep for game;
At length entrapped with his own talons, struck
Too deep to be withdrawn, where a strong shark,
Roused by the anguish, with impetuous plunge,
Dragged his assailant down into the abyss,
Struggling in vain for liberty and life:
His young ones heard their parent's dying shrieks, And watched in vain for his returning wing.
Here ran the stormy-petrels on the waves, As though they were the shadows of themselves, Reflected from a loftier flight through space. The stern and gloomy raven haunted here, A hermit of the atmosphere, on land
Among vociferating crowds a stranger,
Whose hoarse, low, ominous croak disclaimed commu
With those upon the offal of whose meals
He gorged alone, or tore their own rank corses.
The heavy penguin, neither fish nor fowl,
With scaly feathers and with finny wings,
Plumped stone-like from the rock into the gulf,
Rebounding upward swift as from a sling.
Through yielding water as through limpid air,
The cormorant, Death's living arrow, flew,
Nor ever missed a stroke, or dealt a second,
So true the infallible destroyer's aim.
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND (TASMANIA).
D'ENTRECASTEAUX CHANNEL.
NOW D'Entrecasteaux Channel opens fair,
And Tasman's Head lies on your starboard bow Huge rocks and stunted trees meet you where'er You look around; 't is a bold coast enow. With foul wind and crank ship 't were hard to wear:
A reef of rocks lies westward long and low.
At ebb tide you may see the Actæon lie
A sheer hulk o'er the breakers, high and dry.
'Tis a most beauteous Strait. The Great South Sea's Proud waves keep holiday along its shore,
And as the vessel glides before the breeze,
Broad bays and isles appear, and steep cliffs hoar
With groves on either hand of ancient trees
Planted by Nature in the days of yore:
Van Dieman's on the left and Bruné's isle
Forming the starboard shore for many a mile.
But all is still as death! Nor voice of man
Is heard, nor forest warbler's tuneful song.
It seems as if this beauteous world began
To be but yesterday, and the earth still young
And unpossessed. For though the tall black swan
Sits on her nest and stately sails along,
And the green wild doves their fleet pinions ply,
And the gray eagle tempts the azure sky,
Yet all is still as death! Wild solitude
Reigns undisturbed along that voiceless shore, And every tree seems standing as it stood
Six thousand years ago. The loud wave's roar
Were music in these wilds. The wise and good
That wont of old, as hermits, to adore
The God of Nature in the desert drear,
Might sure have found a fit sojourning here.
NEW ZEALAND, NEW GUINEA,
AND NEW CALEDONIA.
ERE lifts New Zealand, mid a sea of storms,
Her hills that threaten heaven like Titan forms,—
Where the long lizard on the herbage lies,
And clouds of emerald beauty paint the skies;
Where the dark savage courts the burning noon,
And counts his epochs by the hundredth moon!
And yonder, redolent with fruits and flowers,
With spicy gales and aromatic showers,
And shady palms that into mid-air run,
To meet the wingéd creatures of the sun,
Fair Papua calls upon the mourning muse
To pause and weep above the lost Pérouse!
But vain her wailing, as the toil was vain
That sought this second Hylas o'er the main !
Eastward she turns, where many an island smiles,
Each like a chief amid its vassal isles,
Where lie the lands so often lost and found,
And where, so long in circling silence bound,
New Caledonia sits upon the seas
That roll their waves amid the Cyclades!
ENEATH the spreading wings of purple morn,
B Behold what isles these glistening seas adorn!
Mid hundreds yet unnamed, Ternat behold;
By day her hills in pitchy clouds enrolled,
By night like rolling waves the sheets of fire
Blaze o'er the seas, and high to heaven aspire.
For Lusian hands here blooms the fragrant clove,
But Lusian blood shall sprinkle every grove.
The golden birds that ever sail the skies,
Here to the sun display their shining dyes,
Each want supplied, on air they ever soar;
The ground they touch not till they breathe no more.
Here Banda's isles their fair embroidery spread
Of various fruitage, azure, white, and red;
And birds of every beauteous plume display
Their glittering radiance, as from spray to spray,
From bower to bower, on busy wings they rove,
To seize the tribute of the spicy grove.
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